BATON ROUGE, La. — Although holding a four-point lead at the half, a 13-0 run by the visitors over the first five minutes of the third quarter spelled doom for the LSU women’s basketball team as the squad fell to the No. 13 Texas A&M Aggies, 53-35, Sunday afternoon inside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Texas A&M (12-4; 2-1 SEC) used a strong second half performance to dominate LSU in the game. The Aggies outscored the Lady Tigers, 38-16, in the second half. The 16 points was the lowest scoring output for LSU in a second half this season. The previous low was 19 last week against Alabama. The Aggies shot 36 percent (20-55) from the field and 92 percent (11-12) from the free-throw line. Texas A&M outrebounded LSU, 43-32, and outscored the Lady Tigers, 24-10, in the paint.
With the loss, the Lady Tigers dropped to 7-9 overall; 1-2 in conference play. LSU had a 19-15 lead in the first half, and this is the first game this season that the Lady Tigers have lost when having a lead at the half. The 15 points by Texas A&M was the lowest scoring output for an opponent in the first half this season.
For the game, LSU shot 27 percent (13-49) from the field and just 53 percent (9-17) from the charity stripe. The Lady Tigers finished 0-for-6 from three-point range for the first game this season without a trey.
Alexis Hyder led the Lady Tigers in scoring and rebounding with 14 points and six rebounds. Hyder also recorded her seventh double-digit scoring performance for the season. Rina Hill tied her career high in rebounds with five in the game. Hill was second on the squad in scoring with nine points.
Jenna Deemer hit a jumper to cut the Aggies’ lead to as low as 10 points to begin the fourth quarter but that would be the closest LSU would get for the remainder of the game. From there, the Aggies scored six straight points before the Lady Tigers scored another field goal. Following a timeout with 4:51 remaining in the game, Hyder scored the final three baskets for the Lady Tigers. Texas A&M scored two additional baskets to add to its lead to seal the victory.
Texas A&M’s Courtney Walker, the SEC’s active career leader in points, led the Aggies in scoring with 21 points and has recorded 20-plus points in four of her last five games. Anriel Howard dominated the boards, hauling in 14 rebounds, 10 of which were defensive boards. Jasmine Lumpkin also scored in double figures with 11 points.
In the first quarter, the Aggies scored first with a pair of free throws from Walker. The Lady Tigers, who went 0-for-7 in field goals to begin the game, got on the scoreboard with 4:38 remaining when Hill hit a jumper to tie the game, 2-2. After a timeout with 4:09 to play, Hill and Hyder combined for six points to give the Lady Tigers an 8-4 lead going into the second quarter. LSU held Texas A&M to 1-of-11 shooting from the floor in the quarter.
Both teams failed score for nearly the first three minutes of the second quarter. Deemer hit a jumper at the shot clock buzzer to score the first points of the quarter at the 7:06 mark. After Chelsea Jennings responded with a basket for the Aggies, Deemer hit another jump shot plus a basket from Jones gave the Lady Tigers a 14-9 lead. Following a timeout with 4:15 remaining in the first half, the Lady Tigers went on a 7-0 run to take a 19-9 advantage. The Aggies, however, went on a 6-0 run to cut the Lady Tigers lead to 19-15 at the half.
“I thought in the first half we really did a nice job of disrupting their offensive sets,” said LSU head coach Nikki Fargas. “We were able to hold a very good basketball team to only 15 points in a half.”
At the half, Hill led the Lady Tigers in scoring with six points. LSU shot 35 percent from the floor, 75 percent from the free throw line and scored eight points off turnovers committed by the Aggies. Texas A&M shot 23 percent from the floor and went a perfect 4-of-4 from the free throw line. Courtney Walker led the Aggies in scoring with six points in the first half.
The Aggies opened the third period with a 6-0 run to take a 21-20 lead, which was their first lead in the game since early in the first quarter. Texas A&M continued the run to 13-0 for a 28-20 lead with 4:28 left in the third. After a timeout with 4:22 remaining, Akilah Bethel hit a free throw to snap a five-minute scoring drought by the Lady Tigers. Texas A&M continued to dominate the quarter, outscoring LSU, 23-7, and leading 38-26 at the end of the quarter.
“I think we have to go back to really stressing that we have to play consistent basketball,” said Fargas. We have to be a team that can string along back-to-back wins. We can’t just settle into the fact that we beat Ole Miss. It’s the SEC and everybody is trying to get that win to move themselves up in the SEC standings so that at the end of the season you can be in the top four. I feel as though we came back ready to only play for 20 minutes. We have to figure out how to get the team intensity at a level it needs to be for 40 minutes.”
The Lady Tigers will hit the road to face Vanderbilt on Thursday, Jan. 14, and Florida on Sunday, Jan. 17. It will be the first of two meetings between the Lady Tigers and the Gators this season. LSU’s next home game will be against Arkansas on Jan. 21.
POST-GAME QUOTES
Texas A&M Head Coach Gary Blair
On today’s win against LSU…
“I thought they were going to give a prize out to which team could score first. That was some bad basketball. That’s the only way to put it. Both teams were trying as hard as they could. We had some good shots and they did too. They just weren’t meant to be. I told the commentator we set the game of basketball back 20 years by how both teams played in the first half. Being down only 19-15 and shooting how we did, it just wasn’t pretty. How would you like at the end of the game to realize (Chelsea) Jennings had two points, and has been lighting it up. Courtney Williams was on the bench the whole ball game. Both of my two five players had zero points. Jordan Jones, who didn’t start, came in and had four points. Somehow we still win the game. Sometimes that’s what depth is all about.”
On LSU’s defensive effort today against Texas A&M…
“Give LSU credit. They just won a ball game (vs Ole Miss). Their hustle was good. They were beating us to loose balls. Like Nikki (Fargas) said in the paper, that’s what they had to do to make up for them not having many offensive threats. A lot of their offensive threats were sitting on the bench and former players sitting in the stands.”
Texas A&M Guard Courtney Walker
On Coach Blair’s halftime message to the team…
“The main two points were we had 13 turnovers. LSU wasn’t necessarily turning them into fast break points, but they were getting more possessions than we were. Our focus was not to turn the ball over and take care of the ball. It didn’t matter what we were running. The other thing was bringing our energy up. We weren’t really playing with a lot of energy. Partially that had to do with us not making shots. To get our momentum going, we came out in our press. I think that really helped us a lot with our turnovers and pushing on the break.”
Texas A&M Forward Anriel Howard
On Texas A&M’s slow start in the first half against LSU…
“We weren’t focusing as a team or making our shots (in the first half). We started out very slowly, but in the second half we came back and started making more shots.”
LSU Head Coach Nikki Fargas
Opening Statement…
“Texas A&M did a great job of making some adjustments in the second half. I thought in the first half we really did a nice job of disrupting their offensive sets. We were able to hold a very good basketball team to only 15 points in a half. This is a 40-minute basketball game. The aggressive play of us in the first it seemed that they won that battle. We’ve been talking to our kids about playing for 40 minutes. We are capable. We have to make that a mindset and a commitment for the entire game.”
On the offensive struggles…
“We’ve had glimpses of where we’ve gone on droughts and we’ve had wide open looks and we missed them. You have to be able to score the basketball. When you do get those open looks, they don’t come often; you have to knock down the open looks. We failed in that area, only making 13 field goals and shooting over 50 times. The play action to get people looks was there but you just have to knock down the shots.”
On Texas A&M’s Courtney Walker…
“She scored the basketball. We held her to six points in the first half. We knew she was going to come back. We really challenge our back line defense to really limit her touches. She is a very good one-on-one basketball player. She has the ability to rise and shoot a true jump shot. It was only a matter of time. We missed some of our ability to make her catch farther out. Our help line defense didn’t look as strong as it could have against her. She scored 13 points in the third quarter. That adjustment that we were trying to make didn’t happen. When a player like that gets the hot hand then you have to know to deny that area. We missed that coverage too many times.”
On not getting points off of turnovers…
“I think the game could have been won in the first half. I thought about how many opportunities we had to really stretch that lead and we didn’t capitalize on the turnovers so it becomes an empty possession. When you hold a team to four points in the first quarter then your defense is doing what it needed to do. We didn’t shoot a good percentage either. Only having a five-point lead going into the half, if we would have been more productive offensively, we should have had a 15-point lead. If we would have made five more shots, it would have been a different ballgame. You hope to withstand that and make a run yourself even if they do make a run in the third quarter. It’s still a big deficit to come back from.”
On the disheartening loss after the win…
“I think we have to go back to really stressing that we have to play consistent basketball. We also have to consistently practice at a level of intensity that where you get into the game it is going to be easier. We have to be a team that can string along back-to-back wins. We can’t just settle into the fact that we beat Ole Miss. Texas A&M is right around the corner in 72 hours. It’s the SEC and everybody is trying to get that win to move themselves up in the SEC standings so that at the end of the season you can be in the top four. I feel as though we came back ready to only play for 20 minutes. We have to figure out how to get the team intensity at a level it needs to be for 40 minutes.”
LSU Forward Alexis Hyder
On what changed in the second half…
“We have to be able to put two halves together. We came out in the third and we did not even look aggressive. We had a lead going into the second half and we didn’t capitalize on it. Once they started playing aggressive, we did not string together enough stops to keep us in the game.”
On what went well with her inside defense…
“It was a team effort. I knew if I fronted, I would have help on the lob. It was really an all-together thing. I wouldn’t say it was all me personally; especially the bench getting on me if I wasn’t in position at the right time. It’s important that we all take account for all that.”
LSU Guard Rina Hill
On what changed in the second half…
“In the locker room at halftime, we talked about how we could maintain and push ahead in the third quarter. We said it but we could not perform, which is why I think they came out really strong in the second half. We were never able to punch back.”
On what Texas A&M Guard Courtney Walker did different in the second half…
“She really just stayed aggressive the whole game. In the first half we were playing better defense. We were contesting her shots, and staying with her on dribble-drives. In the second half, her transition and half-court offense…she got whatever she wanted.